Dr Kat Arney from Cancer Research UK makes some really useful points in this article about how you shouldn't jump to conclusions based on evidence gathered using laboratory experiments:

"When it's something like food, people get really excited and say: 'Does it mean if I eat enough of these things, it will have this effect on me?' It doesn't really work that way because you don't know about the dose, you don't know whether by eating something it's bio-available - meaning it can get from the inside of your tummy into your bloodstream and into the tumour in a dose that's actually relevant. That's the trouble".

2 Replies

Since clinical research became almost impossible many institutions,incl Columbia Pres in New York, onlypermission for 'epidemilogical studies' given. These are difficult to evaluate, almost impossible to compare with true 'controls'give rise to misleading statistics and nonsense headlines. I was told I could not have salt with my egg at famous London hospital, whilst receiving infusion containing 9 G in my arm! Prof S Feldman

Dr Karney is right to draw a distinction between lab and human data, but several human trials are referred to in the Guardian article. Furthermore, Krestin, a purified extract or Coriolus (trametes) versicolor) is a licensed pharmaceutical in Japan and has been subject to a number of clinical trials, so this evidence base has been developed beyond laboratory or epidemiology data.